Sunday, September 30, 2012

WISDOM and INSTRUCTION

To know wisdom and instruction, understand words of insight, receive instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; that prudence may be given to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth ---
The wise will hear and increase in learning, and those of understanding acquire skill, to understand a proverb and their deeper meaning, the words of the wise and their riddles.


The Proverbs of Solomon
Verses 2 through 6

~


I sit and meditate before reading the words of a few scriptures, Buddhist texts, reflections and sometimes the Bible. I have to clear my mind before I read because it is in the quiet that I am inspired. For me, morning meditation isn’t simply quitting the noise between my ears. It is more a sweeping away of distractions and opening my mind to instruction. I love these Sunday mornings because there is are two programs on the radio here that usually touch and inspire me. One is a Gospel program with various choirs whose voices lift and take me out of myself. Then there is another program, Alan Watts, that can be an intellectual discourse on Eastern Philosophy or instruction on meditation. It is important for me to focus on one practice but be open to the wisdom of others. I don’t ever wish to become one of those people with time in practice that never listen to other people but pontificate at every opportunity… sometimes nonstop. Looking for that which we have in common cannot be done when I do all the talking. It is a skill to practice listening… whether it is high spirituality or base political opinion. I learn to sit with myself and laugh at the discourse of opinion in my head and listen for the Heart of Compassion.

geo 5,129

Saturday, September 29, 2012

HAPPINESS

Happiness cannot be sought directly; it is a byproduct of love and service. Service is the law of our being. With love in our heart, there is always some service to other people. A life of power and joy and satisfaction is built on love and service. Persons who hate or are selfish are going against the law of their own being. They are cutting themselves off from God and other people. Little acts of love and encouragement, of service and help, erase the rough places of life and make the path smooth. If we do these things, we cannot help having our share of happiness.


Twenty-Four Hours a Day
From AUGUST 28th page
[HAZELDEN MEDITATIONS]


Make no mistake, I have nothing whatsoever against going to the high Himalayas, joining an ashram or practicing with a guru, but I see others do this with no appreciable change except that they might have that glazed, trance-like-eyes for a time. Appearing spiritual and rushing about from one retreat, sweat lodge, Twelve Step meeting, church, one spa to another, my friends may be deluding themselves thinking they are achieving some sort of merit or life-skill. If I come away from these activities, without a direction toward service I am merely chasing bliss and never finding it.

    There was a public service ad on early television of the fifties admonishing us baby-boomers to: Stop; Look; and Listen when approaching a rail-road crossing. My daily practice of meditation involves taking a break… to Stop to Look at myself and Listen, for the inspiration that comes from the willingness to do the next right thing. It just turns out that doing the next right thing involves service to others in one way or another. I have a hard time loving others when I don’t serve them. I have a hard time seeing myself in the midst of humanity and being an active participant in my own life when I am not giving away what I have found. If I am busy chasing happiness or spiritual perfection I miss the point.
geo 5,128

Friday, September 28, 2012

Hidden Studio

   We are all engaged in building our consciousness during every waking hour. The work is invisible, silent, and consequently overlooked by the bulk of mankind. Nevertheless, it is the most fundamental and far-reaching activity in life. Hour by hour, and moment by moment, we are building good or evil, failure or success, happiness or suffering into our life by the ideas we harbor, the beliefs that we accept, the scenes and events that we rehearse in the hidden studio of the mind. This fateful edifice, upon the construction of which we are perpetually engaged, is nothing less than our self --- our personality, our identity on earth, our life story as a human being.
    That wondrous building, the spiritual consciousness, is called in the Bible the Temple of Solomon, and we are told two wonderful things about that building. It was built without any noise (and we know that thought is soundless), and it was built upon a rock.
    And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was building (1 Kings 6:7).
    … be thou my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me (Psalm 31:2).

Emmet Fox
AROUND THE YEAR
WITH EMMET FOX

~
Silence… stillness of mind… directed contact with creative intelligence… this is the refuge… these are the brick, mortar and stone… sacred foods and preventative medicines I take daily to grace my life. It doesn’t take much when I am healthy but sometimes I get in such a bind that I need emergency treatment. Madness surrounds me at times and at times I am the madness itself. It gets crazy and I get sucked into that maelstrom by virtue of simply being there. Still, in the midst of the madness I have the task of building the edifice of grace I can, at the same time I am in the process of building my sanctuary, retreat into to heal. I am the laborer and the architect is a power greater than me to which I cede as I put one brick on top of another.
geo 5,127

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Brimming with Gratitude

WITHOUT RESERVATION

When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love…

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 37



While practicing service to others, if my successes give rise to grandiosity, I must reflect on what brought me to this point. What has been given joyfully, with love, must be passed on without reservation and without expectation. For as I grow, I find that no matter how much I give with love, I receive much more in spirit.

DAILY REFLECTIONS, p. 279

~

   In my early twenties I had a profound spiritual experience that led me to become a Pentecostal Christian with an emphasis on evangelism. In other words, we were encouraged from the pulpit and by peer pressure to go out and “preach the gospel” to “sinners” wherever we went. I found the experience and the pressure to be a source of much anxiety because; #1, I wasn’t doing it of my own volition and, #2, I was sharing a dogma, much of which I had no experience with and thus, I didn’t really believe in. Naturally, after a few years of this I burned out and went back to drinking.

   The emphasis on service in AA sometimes takes on the same cloak of pretension for the newcomer. Without developing a spiritual backbone, the poor soul has little to offer, no matter how profound hers or his spiritual experience. There is a huge difference between a spiritual experience and developing a relationship with one’s God. If I met someone one time at a bus stop and shared a few opinions or details about each other, I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else much about the person after the brief encounter. Why should it not be any different with sharing the program? The most important aspect, often overlooked, is that we do best when we stick to our experience and share what we know from personal experience and of our own volition. I can share the joy of service for myself but it isn’t wise or frugal to compel others: as another Bill, ole Bill Shakespeare, is quoted; “Shoemaker, stick to thy last… better to do one thing completely well than many badly.”


   Once the  newcomer acquires only a little gratitude and spiritual experience he/she is "brimming with gratitude," and has a heartbeat that must surely result in outgoing love.

geo, 5,126

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Let the Sunshine

The mind is something more radiant than anything else can be, but because counterfeits --- passing defilements --- come and obscure it, it loses its radiance, like the sun when obscured by clouds. Don’t go thinking that the sun goes after the clouds. Instead, the clouds come drifting along and obscure the sun.
Ajaan Mun: HEART RELEASED

~

I like to think that, when the mind is spoken of in some spiritual disciplines in the East, they are talking about the same thing as I speak of referring to a Higher Power. Regardless, that is how I look at it and I like that idea because it allows me to relax and take a deep breath knowing the “mind” is something I, not only have access to, but participate in. The “radiant mind” is always there once I get out of myself… out of the way. My mind and “the mind” are not separate entities having their own agendas. What we call the ego’s mind is mostly what Westerners think of when we speak of “the mind”. It is important to me to know that I have some control over my thinking and behavior. What I have no control over… the passing clouds that obscure it… with humility and patience, can be given to the greater mind of the Heart of Compassion.

geo, 5,125

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

A Portable Higher Power

Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: Job or no job --- wife or no wife --- we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 98
~
A lot of things work for awhile. I could control my drinking to some extent as long as I had responsibilities of family and career. But I had to blow off steam every now-and-then to let the dogs out. I thought that this was normal behavior and that I wasn’t hurting anyone but that was only my opinion. I also hear some of us say that the group is their Higher Power. That is okay for a short period of time but the pressure builds up and, if there is nothing there to stem it away from the group, what can stand between us and the glass? Can the group? I believe the group can do so, but only when a power far greater than the group is channeled through it: i.e., as I reach for the glass the memory of someone in the group saying something like, “a thousand drinks are not enough and one drink is too many.”
    There is a misconception that I call the “Social Services or Hollywood” prescription for alcoholism (until recent years at least). This prescription supposes that all a drunk that is in the grip of the mental disease of alcoholism needs is to get the down and out alcoholic off the streets, give meaning in his/her life via a good job, restoring relationships or finding the love of their lives. Alcoholism, untreated, is a fatal disease that does not loosen its grip just because I stopped drinking for awhile. I found that I needed something that would last and stick with me. Who could I rely on to be with me wherever I go? That power has to be found within… a Higher Power that is portable.
geo 5,124

Monday, September 24, 2012

Eat When Hungry

101 ZEN STORIES
80
The Real Miracle


When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, who believed in salvation through the repetition of the name of Buddha of Love, was jealous of his large audience and wanted to debate with him. Bankei was in the midst of a talk when the priest appeared, but the fellow made such a disturbance that Bankei stopped his discourse and asked about the noise.
    “The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had such miraculous powers that he had a brush in his hand on one bank of the river, his attendant held up a paper on the other bank, and the teacher wrote the holy name of Amida through the air. Can you do such a wonderful thing?”
    Bankei replied lightly: “Perhaps your fox can perform that trick, but that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry, I eat, and when I feel thirsty, I drink.”

ZEN FLESH,
ZEN BONES

Compiled by Paul Reps
And Nyogen Senzaki


~

This has to be my favorite of the Zen stories because Bankei’s response is so reasonable. When I look for miracles of the sort that defy reason, it is too far a reach for me. Even if I followed a spiritual practice, sect or guru who could levitate or create the scent of lilacs out of thin air, it would be beyond my abilities now and a nonsense that would, if I could, be nothing more than an ego-centric exhibition of power. But if I can eat and drink when hungry and thirsty, perhaps the miracle of recovery isn’t too far for me to grasp. Instead of encouraging and enabling me to shed my neurosis, the alternatives for me would create little more than discouragement and to give up trying or submit to a slavish devotion to the “Master”. If the path I am on recovers in me a healthy treatment of my physical and spiritual body, then the shackles of ego fall away naturally. To breathe; to appreciate what I have now; in this moment; to do what is before my hands here; to do the dishes; to sweep my side of the street; and to reach out to help a fellow human being is miracle enough… one day at a time.

geo 5,123

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Perfect Humility?

I’m sure, for instance, that I ought to seek out the finest definition of humility that is possible for me to envision. This definition doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect --- I am only asked to try. Suppose I choose one like this: “Perfect humility would be a state of complete freedom from myself, freedom from all the claims that my defects of character now lay so heavily upon me. Perfect humility would be a full willingness, in all times and places, to find and do the will of god.”

AS BILL SEES IT, pp. 49-50
Bill W.

~
     I mistook humility for a constant state of groveling. I thought that it was always admitting I was imperfect even though I believed I was better than most, or, so very much less than those I held in high esteem. Humility, I have found, is a different critter entirely. Bill states earlier that “… Perfectionists, they say, are either full of conceit because they fancy they have reached some impossible goal, or else they are swamped in self-condemnation because they have not done so.” I have noted that there is a more pathetic form of humility and that is the other side of the coin of false-pride. False-humility is just another aspect of being unwilling to see things as they really are. I have learned that, through applying self-examination combined with the regular practice of meditation, it is akin to looking into one of those magnifying mirrors that show every wrinkle and blemish as well as the beauty in the reflection. Humility comes of being able to accept what I see exactly as I am and to act accordingly.

     It is a bonus to seek the ability to love more so than to be loved… to comfort than to be comforted… to understand than to be understood. This is the plan of the day for me or P.O.D. for you military folks… my marching orders, if you will.
geo
5,122

Saturday, September 22, 2012

An Invitation to Wonder

Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face in the subway, the sight of a small flower growing in the crack of cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a windowsill. Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up the joy, be awake at all moments to “the news that is always arriving out of silence.”
    Slowly, you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Glimpse After Glimpse

Fourteen years ago, on a hot and humid August day, I stood at Leadbetter Beach with my hands hanging limp at my sides and threw up a prayer to the cosmos asking, “Where did the wonder go? I miss the wonder of it all!” I remembered happier times when I first came to Santa Barbara… I watched young people frolicking in the surf… young men and women in love walking hand in hand as I had so long ago. I remembered playing with my daughter making sand castles and holding her to my breast as we waded in the waters for her first experiences with the ocean. My joy was with hers and my future was bright.

    This all came about in my mind like it was yesterday. I could still see the beauty and grace of it but I couldn’t feel a thing. I rushed back to my hovel and sat at my desk and poured three fingers of Jack Daniels in a mug topped with beer, I tossed it down for relief hoping to dissolve the lump in my throat… It worked… It always did…. But it didn’t erase the memory or the sickly feeling of sad nostalgia that haunted me. I didn’t know then what I was in for in the next twenty-seven days. I wrote in my journal: I prayed to God to give me back my soul and remembered Christ’s response to Satan, “What gain is it for a man to win the whole world and lose his soul?” Good question… without a soul there is no wonder to the world. I feel profoundly sad at the notion. I have no sense of wonder. I am lost to love --- what ever happened to my soul?

    I realize now that my bottom wasn’t the times I went to jail or the hospital, the lost of career or love. It was the slow separation and alienation of despair and longing that did me in. I saw joy leave my heart. I felt abandoned by God; and for good reason. I had turned my back on the Heart of Compassion. Yes, I remember that day so clearly because that was the place I came to where the spirit of renewal began its miracle in my heart. That was the altar of sacrifice required of me to shake the grip alcohol and drugs had on me. Prayers from the heart do get answered. "There are all sorts of remedies at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement." 
geo 5,121

Thursday, September 20, 2012

The Example

The example of the Buddha’s life is applicable because he started out basically the same kind of life that we lead, with the same confusion. But he renounced that life in order to find the truth. He went through a lot of religious “trips.” He tried to work with the theistic world of the Hinduism of the time, and he realized there were a lot of problems with that. Then, instead of looking for an outside solution, he began working on himself. He began pulling up his own socks, so to speak, and he became a buddha.  Until he did that, he was just a wishy-washy spiritual tripper. So taking refuge in the Buddha as an example is realizing that our case history is in fact completely comparable with his, and then deciding that we are going to follow his example and do what he did. 
The Heart of the Buddha
 Chogyam Trungpa

     Letting go of ego and admitting to powerlessness is a founding principle of Twelve Step programs. Letting go of ego and applying incredible willpower appears to be the dynamics of Buddhism until a closer look is taken. Speaking only for myself I can admit that I looked at Tibetan monks and other folks who could sit and meditate or practice spiritual disciplines, as admirable but not for me. It was not for me because I knew from long experience that I couldn’t pull myself "up by my own socks"… the fabric was too frayed. Before I even endeavored to begin taking the path to recovery I needed the kind of help that no human being could give. Buddhism doesn’t deal with hitting rock-bottom except in reaching a point of despair in the practice where ego is abandoned. Where Buddhist and Christians would most probably agree is that this total surrender can happen at any time and in any place. Without this surrender we are nothing more than moralists whose every thought and action is self-centered no matter the motive or even the desire to be helpful. Surrender to the Heart of Compassion was the holy place I shed the sandals of ego before the burning bush on the mountain of God.
geo 5,119

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Awakened State

You take refuge in the Buddha not as a savior --- not with the feeling that you have found something to make you secure --- but as an example, as someone you can emulate. He is an example of an ordinary human being who saw through the deceptions of life, both on the ordinary and spiritual levels. The Buddha found the awakened state of mind by relating with the situations that existed around him: the confusion, chaos, and insanity. He was able to look at those situations very clearly and precisely. He disciplined himself by working on his own mind, which was the source of all the chaos and confusion. Instead of becoming an anarchist and blaming society, he worked on himself and he attained what is known as bodhi, or enlightenment. The final and ultimate breakthrough took place, and he was able to teach and work with sentient beings without any inhibition.
The Heart of the Buddha
Chogyam Trungpa
~

 I am one of those annoying people who had a flash of inspiration from which the obsession to drink was lifted immediately. However, having had such an experience from what I believe was the grace of God, I cannot find anything misguided about this kind of instruction. I consider myself somewhat of a deist in that my help came from within and without at once, when I conceded to the Heart of Compassion… the prime mover and creative energy of the universe, the alienation of confusion that had me in its grip. This was a condition in which I seemed to have no power of my own that could have relieved me of the disease of alcoholism. Such a miracle is not a freak of nature. I believe that it is a perfectly natural phenomenon that can be accessed by anyone. This being my experience, I can’t be completely non-theist but I can see the wisdom and experience what the Buddha was talking about. I know that to be true because I did experience something of that and this lifted me out of the state of mind where I was bitter anarchist blaming society, blaming my parents, blaming my job, and blaming my wife for all the ills I suffered. One day I sat down and saw the dark corners of doubt and despair dissipate as the light of the heavens opened my mind to taking the path… the well-traveled road to happy destiny.
geo 5,118

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Taking Refuge

Taking refuge in the Buddha as an example, taking refuge in the dharma as the path, and taking refuge in the sangha as the companionship is very clean-cut, very definite, very precise, and very clear. People have done this for the past twenty-five hundred years of the Buddhist tradition. By taking refuge you receive that particular heritage into your own system; you join that particular wisdom that has existed for twenty-five hundred years without interruption and without corruption. It is very direct and very simple.


The Heart of the Buddha
Choyam Trungpa

 Taking on an Eastern philosophy can be hindered by the idea that to do so is to adopt an exotic and mysterious practice that boarders on occultism. But Buddhism can be easily translated into the homegrown practice of the Twelve Steps of AA. There really is nothing new in Buddhism that the Christian faith doesn’t teach or Western Philosophy and science can object to. It is important to choose a path and in doing so it is important that it is a path that leads somewhere… especially towards sanity. For some of us this path is best described by Twelve Step programs. When we say that we are taking refuge in the Buddha we don’t mean anything even loosely about the Buddha being a deity. We are taking refuge in being awakened. We are taking refuge in an awakening that is within. As in the First Step of Alcoholics Anonymous we are thus recognizing we are asleep. In recognizing we are asleep we are open to the idea that there is no power of our own that can relieve us of the insanity of believing in the dream state we are in. In the end, taking refuge in awakening translates to surrender to the power of that enlightenment.

geo 5,117

Monday, September 17, 2012

Killing the Buddha

If any teacher, therapist, sponsor, belief system, philosophy or program tells you they are the sole possessor of truth, run like hell! We surrendered our potentials once before our diseases. Don’t surrender your hard-won recovery so easily to the opinions and expectations of others, including your own doubt. Do surrender to your Higher Power, the truth of which no one but yourself is qualified to judge. So be sure. Your road to recovery is your own. Don’t stop at second-rate motels claiming to be the last one for miles. Trust your own interior map and you’ll arrive safe and sound where you’ve always been: free. Free of dogma, free of anxiety and even free of teachers. Including me.
The Zen of Recovery
Mel Ash

There have been times I have sat in meetings with my hands pinned down to the seat by my ass when I heard grown men say things along these lines: “My thinking got me here so I do what I am told by my sponsor.” While it is true that alcohol and drugs warped and distorted my thinking it is also true that God gave me brains to use. So much of what I learned in the rooms of AA came to me via a mysterious but ultimately wise intuition that was not dictated to me by a sponsor. In fact, I’ve seen sponsors advise, manipulate and undermine the recovery of those they sponsor by becoming surrogate parents, healers, therapists or un-degreed doctors.

      When I first got sober I operated on the level of all kinds of misconceptions and delusion. But amazingly, within the first few weeks of sobriety, I heard others share their experience. I heard my group share their experiences and I perked up and listened. I needed no one to order me around. In fact, in my first three months I had no sponsor. I watched and listened because I knew to do otherwise would have disastrous consequences. When I found someone to lead me through the Steps I found a true friend. His judgments are as fallible as my own. I don’t go to him for advice as much as I do for another point of view. One of the promises so often quoted in the Big Book is that we will intuitively know what used to baffle us.

      Alcoholics Anonymous is a spiritual program and not a cult of strict obedience to a doctrine or spiritual guru. We face everyday problems individually, and in the group, with meditation and prayer. On page 87 of the B.B. it says, “It is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We pay for this presumption with all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely on it.” To me this means that I come to rely on my own connection with God instead of any other human being. This is an individual adventure that we take together.

geo 5116

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Buddha Takes Refuge in Me

When we say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” we should also understand that “The Buddha takes refuge in me,” because without the second part the first part is not complete. The Buddha needs us for awakening, understanding, and love to be real things and not just concepts. They must be real things and have real effects on life. Whenever I say, “I take refuge in the Buddha,” I hear “Buddha takes refuge in me.”

Being Peace
Thich Nhat Han

 If I have a concept of a Higher Power as something abstract and perfect as a crystalline pure energy, which God is, I am hard pressed to find comfort in it. I know that mine is not a “he” or a “she” but I am also acutely aware that mine is not an “it”. But because my relationship with the Heart of Compassion isn’t described by gender doesn’t take away that personal relationship that lifted my obsession to drink. God transcends gender and is equally called Our Father as well as Our Mother in some religious traditions. I take refuge in the Heart of Compassion because that describes my relationship with the sublime but doesn’t exclude the source of my salvation from calling Her or Him... or by names equally descriptive such as; Wonderful, Counselor, the Prince of Peace, Jeshua Elohim, Mother of God, or, if preferred; Tathagata, Maitreya, Kuan-Yin, Earth Mother, Gaia, Mut (Egyptian Sky), Isis and so on. In other words, a whole pantheon of the descriptions of attributes of what we call God.

Whatever I call God, it is all useless unless it is the living spirit that compels me from within. It is the holiest of communions and the words of the Carpenter apply here: “Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me and I in him…” I call God the Heart of Compassion because I need the Spirit of Compassion to dwell in me. I need that spirit because I don't normally see it there. It is a myth... a lie... that compassion is always something others have but I lack. I invite within that spirit when I call it thus. It  becomes the bread of life then that sustains me instead of an abstract concept I can never understand.


geo 5,115

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Honesty/Recovery

 Today, around 8pm, will be the anniversary of my first 24 hr day of sobriety  fourteen years ago: September 15th 1998. I look back at the experience that brought about this dramatic new direction and am marveled that I was able to make it through that day at all… sober or not. In retrospect, I had no intention whatsoever to quit drinking as I awoke that day. I lay in bed thinking about the events of the days proceeding that morning of despair. There was no sleeping it off or avoiding the truth… I was driven by self-pity and a self-centered obsession that I had no power over. The honesty of recognizing this condition turned out to be the most essential ingredient to the first step out of the morass I found myself in. I had admitted several times before that day that I was an alcoholic but I had not admitted it honestly to my innermost self.

The truth was that I could put away the drink for a day or two… maybe even a month or so… but always, the obsession came back. That morning was different because this admission was escorted by despair. There is no honesty like the honesty of despair… when the facts of life surround and smother… like the struggle is one that overcomes all instinct to survive and complete surrender is the only acceptable response. It is on this altar of honesty that the power of what most of us refer to as “God” is first revealed and the corruption of compassion is atoned. It was on this holy ground that I kicked off my sandals and discovered a Power Within that I could be honest with and about. It was the first three steps of recovery taken without reservation: recognition and surrender to something I would come to believe. It all began that day.
 
geo 5114

Friday, September 14, 2012

Endings/Beginnings

Dr. Carl Jung, one of the three founders of modern depth psychology, had a profound conviction… paraphrased, this is what he had to say about it: “Any person who has reached forty years of age, and who still has no means of comprehending who he is, where he is, and where he is next going, cannot avoid becoming neurotic --- to some degree or another. This is true whether his youthful drives for sex, material security, and a place in society have been satisfied, or not satisfied.” 
Bill W.
The Best of Bill
Fear

 Fourteen years ago on this date the slightest clue that my life would be altered in every way had not presented itself. But my life was turned upside down… inside out… that particular Monday. It really doesn’t matter the details of exactly what happened to me that day but what I can see is that an essential element was added to how I perceived the world around me. I sometimes imagine what it would be like, in an alternative universe, if another George kept on doing what he was doing that day. Instead, I was brought to my knees by a self-imposed crisis of a magnitude that is hard to express. I ordered my last drink at Mel’s… September 14th, 1998… one last drink and, Pow! Right in the kisser… I was God-smacked. I left that drink on the bar and walked away. Demoralized and out of answers I went home… curled up in the fetal position on grey sheets and gave up all hope. Nothing about my life has been the same since that day. I have new routines now. I drink daily from the cup of life when I sit a few minutes with the Heart of Compassion. It was the Heart of Compassion that lifted the obsession to drink; it was the Heart of Compassion that led me to the doors of AA; and it is the Heart of Compassion that opens my own heart to the suffering of others. What I do today isn’t mine to take credit for but the spirit that dwells in all of us does the heavy lifting.


Our dentist, Dr. Jim Rolf, DDS has a mission in Afghanistan in which he trains dental technicians and dentists for work in a sorely neglected medical necessity there. His property, where his clinic is on in shipping containers, is being sold out from under him. He hasn't given up and his calls for financing falls of deaf ears... partially because of all the scams attached to charities of this sort in hopeless places and partially out of apathy. He hasn't given up because he admits he is not doing this work of his own power. He is inspired by the Heart of Compassion's call whether or not he succeeds or fails.


geo 5,113

Thursday, September 13, 2012

FORGIVENESS

In Tibet we say: “Negative action has one good quality: it can be purified.” So there is always hope. Even murderers and the most hardened criminals can change and overcome the conditioning that led them to their crimes. Our present condition, if we use it skillfully and with wisdom, can be an inspiration to free ourselves from the bondage of suffering.

GLIMPSE AFTER GLIMPSE
Sogyal Rinpoche


 I suppose that after I first came around I was mildly disturbed there were so many petty criminals, and even hardened ones, in the Fellowship freely admitting their crimes and misdemeanors. I say “after” because, when I first came in the rooms, I didn’t care who was there. I was desperate and that desperation was the greatest gift I could’ve had if I was to start this journey. The truth was, once I’d shaken off my obsessions like water off a duck’s back, these preconceived notions that a leopard could not change its spots (from my own personal experience) arose. Besides, I felt that even if a murderer could change, why then ought he/she be forgiven the crime? But then I looked at my own misadventures in the Fourth Step and realized that it was this inability to forgive myself for my sins that was the source of so much of my own suffering. The act of forgiving others, the willingness to change and the action of retribution was the magic that worked so well for me. A radical change took place and I understood that at last I could forgive and move on. This was the source of humility and a check on my pride lest I get foolish and judge others wrongly again.

 geo
5,112

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Saved from What?

Killing the Buddha Instead of Ourselves

How can you possibly expect to help others unless you yourself are in touch with your own defects? I know that for myself I don’t even give credence to people outside of recovery who pontificate about our diseases. Give me  someone who’s been there, done what I’ve done and is brave enough to admit they’re still far from perfect. I’ll run as fast as I can from the pure and saintly beings who want to save me. Save me from what? Or more insidiously, for what? To me, the only difference between a halo and a noose is the distance of twelve inches.
Mel Ash
The Zen of Recovery


 Help comes from diversity. Isolated and left to my own devices I found that my problem was more profound than I ever imagined. If I had no problem with drugs and alcohol I wouldn’t have even tried to seek a solution. Pounding on a pulpit and threatening me with Hell-fire didn’t work because I was already in a Hell of my own making. The curious thing was that I had fooled myself into thinking my excesses were the right path for me. I couldn’t imagine that depression, confusion, bewilderment and alcohol abuse weren’t an essential component of my creative drive. Anyone not so afflicted had nothing to say to me. This contempt wasn’t helpful either and, ironically, it became the fulcrum that wedged me into sobriety. I had no idea that there was anyone else who felt the same way as I did. I was astounded at finding the diversity in Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought I would sit around in meetings bemoaning my past… pounding my chest in mea culpas… and immersing myself in self-pity and regret.


I found instead a fellowship of hope, faith and true encouragement by others who had experienced the same despair I had felt. I found joy and laughter that lifted and inspired me to continue in spite of my shortcomings. No longer burdened with guilt and shame I took the steps of recovery that relieved me from even the vestiges of the obsession to use and drink.


geo
5,111

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The Towers of Grief

Today I set aside a few minutes for the firefighters, police officers, first responders all, whose lives were given, as well as the civilians, whose lives were taken, on that day of infamy eleven years ago. The grief that day was tangible as though a thickness in the atmosphere shrouded all our affairs.

I got out of bed early that morning… it was one of my days off as a cab driver. I turned on the TV... the first reports came over my set. I watched in detached fascination and horror as various pictures of the airliner crashing into the first tower were revealed. I remember it at first as just another tragedy broadcast in the morning news before the shock settled in… some terrible accident far away and remote… images on the screen... before it hit me what actually happened. The first images of people fleeing the building were aired and suddenly I was appalled.

The second tower was another story… I realized then it was a terrorist attack… the odds of two airliners sequentially hitting the towers was too coincidental to be anything else. By then the first responders had shown up. I saw them rushing towards the tragedy to assist those who were escaping. This fact alone awed me… and the first tower collapsed… through the dust firefighters, police officers and first responders still busied themselves with the remaining building and I prayed it wouldn’t collapse too. When it came down I realized that the men and women who serve and protect us every day earned my respect no matter how badly or oppressively they do their normal routines. When duty called their training kicked in that day.

Thirdly I let myself grieve with the millions who watched helplessly as I did… people jumping to sure death from the buildings… people helping each other on the ground… people doing the best they could under horrible circumstances. A candle-light vigil was held that evening at the courthouse. I brought my candle and I stood in silence but that silence was sorely disrespected when someone took to a megaphone asking people to come to express themselves. It was then that conspiracies and political agendas were first hatched. I walked away… I’d paid my respects and I’d learned something so very valuable I have to pass it on … there is no room in the Heart of Compassion to exploit normal passions. Grief is not to be… is not to be… politicized.

Most importantly, I saw another spirit more powerful working as I drove the cab for about a week afterwards. First of all… there were no calls for the usual parties. The fares were most courteous and kind. The grief expressed itself in an amazing respect for each other… fares and driver alike. I even had an Iranian and two Arabs as a fare who expressed their sorrow… it was a heartfelt communion I will never forget. We were stunned for a week or so and the world was “One” that day.

geo
5,110

Monday, September 10, 2012

What is the Message We Carry

TRADITION FIVE

“Each group has but one primary purpose ---
To carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

“Shoemaker, stick to thy last!”… better do one thing supremely well than many badly. That is the central theme of this Tradition. Around it our Society gathers in unity. The very life of our Fellowship requires the preservation of this principle.




TWELVE STEPS AND
TWELVE TRADITIONS
(p. 150)

What is the message an AA group is carrying to the alcoholic who still suffers? Is it an evangelistic insistence that we must concede our will to a cultish lock-step convention of acquiring a sponsor, working the Steps and staying so damned busy we don’t have time to look at ourselves after we have done the inventory steps? Are we also so damned busy we don’t have time to stop and ask a newcomer how he/she is doing and to actually listen to what is being said? Is the message also an insistence that we all become reformers and believe in a certain way a certain God... or even the gender of God? Is the purpose of the group to indoctrinate the proper application of the Big Book? Is the Big Book little more than a bludgeon to beat up and judge our fellow alcoholics? I think not. Isn’t our first compelling motivation supposed to be understanding and love for those who suffer?

I get so very tired of hearing a monotone delivery in groups that always follows the same pitch: personal details thrown in but usually tied in neatly with how stupid they were and how wise their sponsor or the "group conscience" is. Rarely do they admit that they possess a basic intelligence or compassion common to all of us… drinkers or not… drunks or not… alcoholics or not. To do so would have to involve taking responsibility for our lives before we stopped drinking. It was this longing for compassion and sobriety that led me to the rooms. I didn’t come to AA to acquire another dogma. I came to be relieved of my suffering. I was a sick man who saw the need wanted to get well… I was not a stupid, evil man trying to reform myself. Today I reserve the right to think for myself because I have the innate ability... the God given... if you will, to do so.

geo
5,109